different stage of development, competed in 1987–88. The Celtics, who won three titles in the 1980s, were beginning to slip but were still the Celtics. The Lakers, who’d won five titles that decade, though slightly past their peak—call it five after midnight—were still among the best ever. The Pistons were just reaching cruising altitude and might well have been the best team in the game that year, even if few realized it. And the Bulls, in whom, though nascent and very much in the act of becoming, the contours of the great dynasty—six titles in eight seasons—could already be seen.
